Giovanni Pernice awkwardly grilled on This Morning over Amanda Abbington investigation

Giovanni Pernice has claimed he had a ‘small revenge’ on Amanda Abbington by winning Strictly Come Dancing in Italy.

Pernice, 35, was promoting his memoir Gio: Taking The Lead, on This Morning when he growing frustrated with presenter Craig Doyle who challenged him over the scandal which engulfed the dancing competition.

A BBC probe was launched into Sherlock star’s complaints and found ‘some, but not all’ should be upheld.

Upheld complaints included those of verbal bullying and harassment, with Giovanni’s language called ‘belittling, dismissive, and insulting’. He was cleared of claims of physical aggression.

But speaking to Doyle and his co-host Christine Lampard, Pernice said it was time to tell his ‘side of the story’.

Doyle pointed out that while some allegations were dropped, cases of ‘verbal bullying’ were upheld.

In response, Pernice said that while he couldn’t repeat one of the words he used but insisted it was a word that ‘every day, all of us we use’.

‘Again, it is the tone set in the room. If you use that tone to me, I use the same tone to you,’ he said.

Pernice revealed he’d even considered suicide while waiting for the findings of the BBC investigation and his book was for all the people who supported him.

‘I appreciate it was a difficult time for you personally. It was also a difficult time for Amanda,’ Doyle maintained, with Pernice agreeing: ‘Absolutely.’

Doyle continued: ‘She wouldn’t have gone through the whole process had she not felt there was something in it,’ while referencing Abbington’s ‘pay-out’ from the BBC and her allegations that Pernice was ‘underplaying things’.

‘Everybody sees it differently, isn’t it?’ Pernice hit back. ‘I’m just talking factual. The investigation – this is what was upheld, this was what was not upheld. We both know what is the truth.’

‘The complaints that were upheld, do you see what you did wrong there? Is there a reflection there from you where you could have done things differently?’ Doyle pushed, with Pernice reiterating that he’d used ‘one specific word’.

‘But other than that, I’m not here to justify myself,’ the dancer said. ‘My life [has] moved on, I’m happy now. I went to Italy, I won the same show, different country. So I did have my small revenges in life.’

Lampard told Pernice that they had ‘to go to Amanda for a right of reply, obviously, Giovanni’, before reading a statement from her representatives claiming that Pernice was ‘trying to reframe’ the investigation and that any suggestion he hadn’t told his side of the story was ‘ludicrous’.

She then asked if he was approaching dancing in a different way, to which he replied: ‘You asked me the same question last time I did an interview, and I answer the same way right now.

‘If you want to succeed, there’s only one way to succeed. Commitment, resilience, get the trophy, go home. That it what it is.’

It’s been reported that Amanda has received a five-figure sum from BBC Studios, plus a contribution to her legal fees.

Appearing on Newsnight, the actress said she had been put through ‘a litany of verbal abuse’ for ‘seven hours a day, for seven weeks’.

‘There was a 35-minute rant at me with him throwing his hands up in the air and calling me names and telling me all sorts of things that I was and how he couldn’t really cope with it anymore,’ she said.

Amanda added that she never set out to ‘ruin anybody’s career’ or take down Strictly.